Paris, October 10, 2013 – As the evolving banking landscape continues to challenge Europe’s financial sector, Crédit Agricole has taken enterprising steps to engage with their customers in an award-winning digital application platform. The story of Crédit Agricole’s CA Store is being told in an interview published by the BearingPoint Institute alongside BearingPoint’s new research that shows banks need to be taking bold steps to thrive under the sector’s new reality.

Michel Goutorbe, Deputy General Manager at Crédit Agricole, in charge of innovation, spoke of the bank’s initiative to create the CA Store, a ground-breaking platform to foster co-creation of banking applications and utilities between Crédit Agricole customers and digital businesses.

Conditions for collapse

Michel Goutorbe, Deputy General Manager at Crédit Agricole, in charge of innovation

Of Crédit Agricole’s motivation to invent the radical banking platform, Michel Goutorbe said: “Perhaps, in the banking sector, we either already have the conditions for collapse or they are forming right next to us. In innovation terms, the real risk is to do nothing.”

It is the first platform for jointly creating and downloading banking applications. Crédit Agricole has arranged to bring application creators together in a cooperative known as “Les Digiculteurs (“Digi-farmers”) and put them in touch with customers seeking innovative, high-performance applications for their banking information.

The CA Store’s groundbreaking approach to bringing the traditional business of retail banking into the digital era, and with it a close partnership with the customers, has won them a plethora of awards, including ‘Best In Show’ at the FinoVateEurope 2013 awards.

Eric Falque, firm-wide leader for Digital Marketing, Sales & Customer Management at BearingPoint, commenting on the prize, said: “The CA store is a best practice example on how banks can combine open innovation, co-creation with customers along with a robust and secured IT environment to drive innovation to market in matter of months rather than years. The BearingPoint team who participated in the development of this project are proud to see the partnership with CA Store rewarded.”

Alex Kwiatkowski, ‎Head, IDC Financial Insights Europe, said: “The bank's CA Store is an excellent example of a traditional financial institution embracing the digital world in order to make material improvements to the way in which it engages with customers via smartphones and tablets.”

He continued: “In an industry where differentiation is often hard to identify, the CA Store stands out as a major departure from the norm.”

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About Crédit Agricole Store

Crédit Agricole Store aims to foster an open dialogue between the French digital channels and customers of Crédit Agricole. This innovation project, initiated by the Crédit Agricole Group through the Regional Banks and the National Federation of Crédit Agricole SA, could count on the support of its partners: CA Technologies, CA Services, Harmony, BearingPoint , IBM, immersive Lab, and soon Microsoft. The CA Store already has 20 applications in just nine months, and provides customers with new features (geolocation expenses, educational games around savings services to people with disabilities, management expense, reconciliation of health spending, etc.).

About FinoVateEurope

FinovateEurope is an international conference that brings together start-ups and established companies in the fields of banking and financial technology. On 12 and 13 February, 64 preselected companies – on the basis of an application – presented their innovative products for 7 minutes. Only eight of them received an award determined by an audience vote - more than 300 bankers, investors, analysts and editors.

About the BearingPoint Institute

Founded in 2009, the BearingPoint Institute is an incisive, authoritative voice on business-critical topics, bringing together the finest minds from both within and outside the BearingPoint organisation. We strive to:

Advise business leaders to understand the evolution of the global economy at a deeper level

Propose new points of view about strategy and organisational change, and stimulate debate

This is achieved by offering practical, real-world advice from:

A leadership team composed of senior BearingPoint Partners, representing geographical diversity and a wealth of capabilities

An independent Advisory Board formed by recognised business leaders and academics

Studies made by experts illustrated with real-life examples

About BearingPoint

BearingPoint consultants understand that the world of business changes constantly and that the resulting complexities demand intelligent and adaptive solutions. Our clients, whether in commercial or financial industries or in government, experience real results when they work with us. We combine industry, operational and technology skills with relevant proprietary and other assets in order to tailor solutions for each client’s individual challenges. This adaptive approach is at the heart of our culture and has led to long-standing relationships with many of the world’s leading companies and organizations. Our 3350 people, together with our global consulting network serve clients in more than 70 countries and engage with them for measurable results and long-lasting success.